photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Wayne McDaniel is pictured Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026, at his new business, Experiencing Wellness.

For most of his working life, Wayne McDaniel was all about helping people invest.

McDaniel, 70, was a financial planner, and he had a mission statement for that work: “to help people increase their capacity to live and to give.” He also was really interested in health and wellness all his life, eating a balanced diet and living an active lifestyle.

So, it was a shock to him when he had a heart attack nine years ago.

“It kind of woke me up,” McDaniel said, “and I’m like, ‘Huh, I’m not in as good of health as I thought that I was.’ … So, after that, I became a little more serious at investigating what does it mean, what do you have to do to stay healthy?”

He said it’s “really a little bit unclear” what was wrong with his health before, so he tried a lot of different things. He tightened up his diet, becoming a pescatarian for a while and getting more serious about cutting out sugars and processed foods. He started taking fish oil and other supplements.

And he tried a menagerie of high-tech devices that use special lights, vibration, electromagnetic pulses and more to stimulate the body in new ways.

“I’ve done most of those, and what I find is that they are overall rejuvenating and have helped me to, at age 70, feel like I’m way younger than that,” he said.

But most of these technologies are expensive and not very accessible to the average person. So, after he had success with them, McDaniel again wanted to help everyday people invest – not in the markets, but in their wellness.

“I want to help people live better, live healthier, live longer,” McDaniel said. “And the healthier you are, the better you can give back – not necessarily financially, but give of your life to other people.”

That’s what he hopes will happen at the end of this month, when his new business, Experiencing Wellness, opens near the intersection of Clinton Parkway and Kasold Drive.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Ring-shaped light fixtures hang from the ceiling at Experiencing Wellness on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026.

The space in the strip mall near the Hy-Vee is mostly empty right now, but McDaniel expects to get all kinds of gadgets moved in in the next few weeks – pulsating beds and mats, headsets for meditation, even a chamber where you can breathe microscopic particles of salt.

But don’t expect anything like a gym or fitness center here. There will be a couple of exercise machines, including a high-tech stationary bike, but most of the technology McDaniel will be installing is to help people reset and recharge their bodies, or just have novel sensory experiences they could only get with the technology.

The new experiences will start in the lobby, McDaniel said, where patrons will be able to sit in special chairs and breathe hydrogen gas, which he loves for its “super-antioxidant” properties. Panels on the walls will generate pulsed electromagnetic frequencies, or PEMF, which are used in a lot of the technology that McDaniel will be featuring. He said you may have heard of professional athletes who use PEMF: “PEMF is used a lot for athletic recovery.”

The lobby will also have one of those singing bowls that resonates when you run a mallet along it. But this one will be 3 feet in diameter, large enough for someone to get inside it and sit down. “When you’re in there, it’s kind of like, ‘Oooooohhhhhh,'” McDaniel said. “That’s a cool experience.”

Several rooms in the space are set aside for “wellness pods” that you’ll be able to lie down in for 40 minutes at a time. Inside, McDaniel said, the pods will give you a dose of red light, which is intended to promote cellular repair, as well as vibration, magnetic frequencies, and ionized oxygen. “You’re getting the whole works” in the pod, he said.

If you’d prefer a shorter dose of red light, there will be a room where you can stand between two powerful red light panels on a vibrating plate. This one will last for 10 minutes. “If you do more than 10 minutes, your body has already absorbed whatever it can,” McDaniel said.

Some of the devices will also scan users’ bodies and create custom experiences just for them. One of them will do a full-body scan, “measuring the energy levels in different parts of your body,” and then generate a report on anything that’s unusual, McDaniel said, though it can’t actually diagnose any medical conditions. Another machine will have a high-tech bed that scans your back and then uses rollers to do a custom acupressure massage.

Behind all these pods is what McDaniel calls the “immersion oasis.” Here you’ll be able to lie in a “vibro-acoustic bed,” which will have a selection of songs that are mapped to full-body stimulation. “You can listen to the music and feel it in your whole body,” McDaniel said. The bed was designed by a chiropractor, and it has dozens of songs that McDaniel said are built around specific frequencies meant to affect different parts of the body.

You’ll also be able to try out a NeuroVIZR, which is a headset that can guide you through a meditation routine, or lie underneath a light that flickers on and off at specific frequencies, which you’re supposed to experience with your eyes closed. “Somebody in particular might want to use this if they want to expand their consciousness,” he said. “You can have something similar to a psychedelic experience, called ‘cyberdelic.'”

And, in the corner of the room, there will be a chamber for halotherapy, or salt therapy, where you breathe in microscopic particles of salt that are released into in the air. “It’s counterintuitive,” McDaniel said, but some people find it helpful for respiratory and skin conditions.

Most people haven’t used these machines before, and may not have even heard of them. McDaniel said much of the technology is pretty new, and it’s not cheap for the individual user to access it.

“Yes, you can go and buy most of this, but you’re going to spend thousands, tens of thousands, perhaps more dollars to get a bunch of stuff,” he said.

Even at businesses that offer these services, McDaniel said, the business model is often just to sell you a single session on a machine. But he plans to operate Experiencing Wellness on a membership model, with plans starting at $59 a month, where people can use a variety of different machines regularly. On a lower-tier plan, he said, “somebody can come and do red light and vibration and a little bit more three times a week.” The higher-tier plans, he said, will let people use almost all of the machines – if they have time for it, that is.

“They could spend the whole day here and not do everything,” McDaniel said.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

A hydration station is pictured at Experiencing Wellness on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026.

For those who can’t afford a membership, he said Experiencing Wellness will also have a “pay it forward” program where people can donate toward memberships for other customers if they feel like it.

“One thing that’s really important to me, part of my mission and vision, is to make wellness affordable,” McDaniel said.

Experiencing Wellness will be opening on Nov. 30 at 3514 Clinton Parkway, Suite I-4. Because people may not know what to expect, McDaniel plans to give customers an opportunity to try before they buy in the business’ opening week.

“They can come in and use everything we have – almost everything – for free,” he said. “They can just come in, try it out, see what they like.”

And he hopes they’ll find something that makes their lives better, something they may not have even known existed.

“There’s been so much that’s been discovered and developed in just, like, the past 20 years,” McDaniel said. “It’s been amazing.”